Hallelujah! I#039m Pastor Bumseok Kim from the Sydney Pure Gospel Church. In verse 25 of our text, God says, 'Whoever fears man will be snared, but whoever trusts in the Lord will be safe. Today, as we meditate together on those who trust in the Lord, I will testify how God has rebuked and guided me.
First, he has a passion for one soul.
I have received lots of&graces from coming to this pastors#039 seminar, the greatest of which is the realization that I need to be changed. I came with the heart that I should change the saints through QT&and the program, but I realized that if I don#039t change, if I don#039t do QT, if I don#039t see the sin in me, if I don#039t have the Redeemer QT flowing in my life, I won#039t be a pastor in the end. I realized that it takes ten or twenty years for leaders to be built and for the church to be built around those leaders. Two months ago, a pastors#039 seminar was held in Sydney, Australia, with Pastor Yang Jae Kim as the lecturer. Ten years ago, I invited Rev. Kim to the seminar, but he informed me that he was unable to attend, but this time he contacted me first and said, 'You should do it. It doesn#039t matter if there#039s only one of you!ampldquo So I said, amprdquoThis is something that can#039t be put off, this is something that has to be done!' And I accepted it. For three days, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., until the evening rally, there was amazing grace. And for two days, we took him on a boat ride through Sydney Harbor, which is known as one of the world#039s three great harbors, and we had a meal, and we showed him the opera house, which everybody wants to go to, but she wasn#039t interested in the scenery, she was interested in the story of the redemption, the secular history, and the story of one soul. Your pastor is impacting so many people around the world for good through the word, and you are so blessed.
Second, I am one who recognizes my sin in both success and suffering.
I immigrated to Australia with my parents in 1988 and grew up in the Sydney Full Gospel Church. I studied at a seminary in the United States in 2001, completed my master#039s and doctoral programs, and returned to Sydney in 2007. In 2009, I was voted in by the congregation to become the senior pastor, serving as an associate pastor, and then as the lead pastor in 2014. By all appearances, I was a successful and blessed pastor, but that#039s when the struggles began. I was so afraid of not being named after my predecessor that I felt compelled to do a really good job, and the stress was tremendous. When those who had initially supported and applauded me, especially the elders, became divided and criticized and opposed me, the church became divided and quarrels broke out, and I even sent a letter to Yeouido Church in Korea to inform them. I went to the prayer center, fasted, came down, gathered the elders in the church, knelt down and washed their feet one by one, hugged them with tears, and prayed and repented. Although the crisis was over for a while, the problems in the church didn#039t go away. Eventually, as I watched the disputes and quarrels among the members, I had a panic attack while preparing to preach on Sunday.
'God, am I a failure? What did I do wrong to make this so difficult?' I cried out. My life didn#039t make sense and I didn#039t know what to do. After about two months of recuperation in South Korea and the United States, I came back to Sydney and spoke at my first Sunday service entitled amplsquoGrace Under the Rodem Treeamprsquo. It was about the prophet Elijah, who fought 850 prophets of Baal and had a tremendous success where fire came down from heaven and defeated the false prophets, but Jezebel refused to give in and threatened to kill him, and the people of Israel, after seeing the tremendous miracles, refused to abandon their idols, refused to return to God, and disobeyed him, broke down and said enough is enough and said they were going to die, and that was me. I had a watershed moment of repentance when I realized that I had been guilty of thinking that I could do better than the pastor before me, that I could please people more, that I could rely on people to do better in ministry. In a word, I was prideful I wanted to please people and I wanted to be praised for doing a good job. God saw my sin and wanted me to be broken.
Third, you should be content with God alone.
The same God who comforted Elijah by bringing him water and bread through an angel comforted me, but it didn#039t cure my panic disorder. I was in so much pain from the frustration and guilt anxiety that I fell to the ground in prayer. I cried out to God, amplsquoSave me, take me out of this pain, and if you can#039t, take me with you,amprsquo and He taught me and guided me to rely on Him in worship and in the Word. I realized how I was looking at people in worship and not God, so I closed my eyes from the singing to the preaching and tried to let God alone receive the worship. Then came this confession: ampldquoThe Lord alone is enough for me, not what I have and don#039t have, not whether things are good or bad, not whether I get what I want or not, but my true joy, hope, and peace is in the Lord alone!amprdquo From then on, I stopped looking at the church and the saints and started looking at God, and this confession set me free. As I became free, the pastors began to be free, the saints began to be grateful, and the church, which had suffered so much, began to be restored: amplsquoLord, You are enoughamprsquo. When you make this confession, your fears disappear. I believe that when my sins are realized because of what I think are hardships, and I come before God because of those hardships, and all my sins are forgiven, and my soul is set free, and God becomes my everything, then I believe that we will spread our wings and fly freely into the sky.
I want you to believe in God. I hope you will lift your head to the sky, praise God, and have the courage to get up and follow God, even if it#039s difficult and hard right now, knowing that He has a hold on your life and is guiding you. I believe that God#039s name will be exalted through you then, and I bless you and I hope that you will be the kind of people who rely on God, so that you can truly live a heavenly life here on earth, in Jesus#039 name.
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